Prosecutor Says Lawyer’s No-Contest Plea in Hunter’s Death Is ‘Repugnant’
A Pennsylvania lawyer who had prior run-ins with the law has pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter and illegal gun possession in the accidental shooting death of a hunter.
David Manilla faces up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on July 8, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The newspaper calls Manilla a “felon-turned-lawyer whose years of lawless gun-toting ended with the death of a Quakertown deer hunter,” Barry Groh.
Bucks County Deputy District Attorney Bob James criticized the plea, calling it “repugnant” and “half-hearted,” the Morning Call reports. “He’s thumbing his nose at the Groh family by pleading no contest,” James told the publication.
The stories have details on Manilla’s criminal history. Manilla pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in 1985, before he attended law school, based on accusations that he beat a man with a steel weight-lifting bar and broke his skull. Manilla was banned from owning or possessing firearms, but he continued to hunt with guns. He lost his hunting license for two years after he and a companion fired in the direction of another hunter in 1993, hitting him with bird shot. In 2009, Manilla was arrested for shoplifting and later pleaded guilty to retail theft.
Manilla was hunting with his uncle, former Montgomery County District Attorney Michael Marino, when Groh was shot.
